The Yorkshire Atheist

Why is Religious Belief so Persistent?

Why is it that religion seems to persist against all reason, it seems irrational. This is a question I have asked myself for a long time; I gave up religion because it didn’t make any sense and the evidence against it’s validity was so strong, why haven’t others done the same? I am going to try and sum up why I believe religion still has such a stranglehold on so many people:

1. Science and history are hard: learning the basics of science and history is easy and doesn’t take much time, however, to truly understand most of it in depth takes a lot of time and effort. This leads us onto:

2. Belief bias: people tend to easily accept evidence that they agree with (regardless of its validity) and attempt to reject any evidence that does not tie in with their preexisting beliefs. This is why you will often find people only reading literature, watching videos, etc. that back up their own beliefs. It is my belief that this is one of the main reasons so many religious fanatics know next to nothing about the science behind evolution or the historical inaccuracy of the biblical texts.

3. Childhood indoctrination: I was raised in a religious household where I was taught from a very young age that failing to believe in God meant eternal anguish. This kind of indoctrination can lead to a deeply ingrained fear of leaving a religion. To get an idea about horrific childhood indoctrination I advise you to watch the documentary “Jesus Camp”; trailer here.

4. Religious scriptures are very deviously written: although there is a lot of very poorly written passages in pretty much every religious text they nearly all have one thing in common; the concept that blind faith is the highest of virtues and the idea that not having faith will lead to eternal punishment. It is the ultimate carrot and stick.

5. We are social animals: as social animals we will do almost anything to stay in the proverbial “in-group”. We do not want to be consider outcasts by our friends, families and communities. For this reason, speaking out against a commonly held belief becomes so very difficult to do.

and finally

6. We as a species have great curiosity: although our curiosity has lead to so many amazing things without motivation our curiosity can lead to poor ideas; I imagine most of us have looked around at nature and wondered how it all happened, or looked up at the night sky and wondered what’s out there. The motivation to discover the truth leads to great discoveries yet intellectual laziness causes our imagination to make up answers to our curiosity. Throughout history humanities intellectual laziness has lead to the creation of thousands of deities.